Abu Omar al-Shishani
Tarkhan Batirashvili (1986-10 July 2016), known by the kunya Abu Omar al-Shishani, was the Minister of War of the Islamic State and their field commander during the Syrian Civil War. al-Shishani was from Georgia, but he was descended from Muslim Kists and became a jihadist after being discharged from the Georgian Army after the 2008 Russo-Georgian War. He was reported dead during Operation Inherent Resolve in March 2016 after being wounded in an airstrike by the US Air Force, with the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights and the US Department of Defense confirming his death; however, pictures showing him alive were circulated on Twitter by the Islamic State's Amaq News agency. His death was confirmed in July 2016 as the result of a US airstrike on al-Shirqat, Iraq. Biography Batirashvili was born in Birkiani in the Georgian SSR of the Soviet Union to an Orthodox Christian Georgian father and a Sunni Muslim Kist mother from Pankisi Gorge (she was descended from Chechens). He grew up in the Kist-dominated village of Birkiani, and in the 1990s he assisted the Chechen rebels in fighting in the Chechen Wars, at times accompanying them on missions against the Russian Army. He later joined the Georgian Army and fought in the 2008 Russo-Georgian War, serving as a spotter for artillery by targeting Russian tanks and relaying their coordinates to the big guns. Batirashvili was discharged and arrested in 2011 for possession of firearms, and he was imprisoned as a result. ISIS commander Batirashvili was transformed in prison, and vowed to fight for jihad, joining Chechen troops in Turkey to head for war-ravaged Syria in 2012. He led the Muhajireen Brigade, a unit of foreign fighters, in Syria as an ally of the Al-Nusra Front in the Battle of Aleppo. In late 2013 he was replaced as commander of the brigades by Salahuddin Shishani because he swore allegiance to the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria, while the Chechens had already sworn allegiance to Caucasus Emirate emir Dokka Umarov. Under ISIS, he was given command of their forces in northern Syria, namely Aleppo Governorate, Ar-Raqqah Governorate, Idlib Governorate, and Latakia Governorate. By the middle of 2014 he was a member of the shura of the Islamic State in Raqqah, and he was falsely reported dead many times. Reported death On 4 March 2016, Abu Omar al-Shishani was reported to be mortally wounded in a US Air Force airstrike on al-Shaddadi while he was there to lead Islamic State jihadists in the fight against the Kurdish YPG forces. al-Shishani was reported to have been "clinically dead" by the Syrian Observatory of Human Rights on 12 March, and on 14 March two US officials confirmed that he had been killed in the airstrike, which had been announced on 8 March. Despite the release of the photograph showing al-Shishani's body and a US Department of Defense confirmation of his death, the Islamic State denied that al-Shishani was killed in the airstrike. In fact, the Islamic State went so far as to circulate two pictures of al-Shishani posing with other Islamic State fighters to prove that he was alive. The Amaq News channel stated that he was still alive despite US claims that he had been killed, and Twitter pictures backed up the Islamic State's claims. Confirmed death On 13 July 2016, the Islamic State's Amaq News Agency stated that al-Shishani had been killed amid battles in Mosul. This contradicted previous, unconfirmed reports of his capture or death, and it was the first time that Amaq claimed that he had been killed. His last appearance had been in a June 2014 video stating that the caliphate would come after the borders in the Middle East were taken down, and his death was seen as major blow to ISIS, as he was the Islamic State's "Minister of War". The US Department of Defense confirmed that they had been wrong in their previous report, and that al-Shishani had been killed in the fighting for Shirqat during the Mosul offensive; they decided not to "confirm" the deaths of IS leaders until after their sources were confirmed. He was confirmed to have been killed in a US airstrike on al-Shirqat, Iraq. al-Qaeda cleric Abu Sulayman Muhajir welcomed his death, saying that he was responsible for hundreds of Mujahideen's deaths in Deir ez-Zor and Sheitat, calling him "evil", a "criminal", and a "Kharijite". The Islamic State vowed to avenge his death, and on 14 July a truck driver killed 84 people in Nice, France and wounded 202 in the 2016 Nice attack, which the Islamic State claimed was revenge for al-Shishani. Category:1986 births Category:2016 deaths Category:Georgians Category:Kists Category:Chechens Category:Sunnis Category:ISIL Category:Al-Nusra Front Category:Al-Qaeda Category:Killed Category:Islamists Category:Chechen Islamists Category:Georgian Islamists